Serious Question Here, Mexico?,

[seapower]

After many year's of having Mexican's coming to this Country to work, why can't they go back home and make Mexico the kinda place they are coming too? I am in no way dis-respecting them. I have said forever, if the work wasn't here for them to do they wouldn't be here in the first place. I have to respect a man (or woman) that is willing to leave their home and family to do better for them. I have had a few guy's that worked for me on the deck, I found one guy in particular to be almost perfect in everyway when it came to an employee. To say that for the most part they are smart and industrious isn't a stretch. Yes there are slacker's and un-desireable's, as would be with any group. The guy's that I "knew" were absolutely trustworthy.

With all that said; why can't they make Mexico a place they would like to stay in or go back to? They come here and get grade school through college education's, they get experience in work and equipment that they obviously wouldn't have back home. Many save alot of the money (or send it back home) they make here, why couldn't they use that same money to start up a business there. I don't know if the Gov't would even support or encourage that. Just from what I've seen out of them here, I can't help but think that there would be a huge "snowball" effect from other's seeing other's gaining in their ability to support themselves. Any resources needed, as I see it would be readily available.

I'm asking this question out of ignorance I guess. I admit that I've never been there, but know other's who have. I even know some that are talking about moving down there, because they like it. This post is in no way meant to be racist, please don't make it that way. Frank

[Big Fish Billy]

Interesting question....don't know the answer....but people have come here from all the other countries in the world because it was better here.....don't know the percentage of those that returned and made their countries of origin better....thinking 0%....but before long, if things don't stop slipping, I'd say at least the rich are going to go somewhere else.........their money already has........

[seapower]

That's part of my question. As in the case of my grand parent's and great grand parent's, there wasn't anywhere to go back to. Between the cost and length of the trip's (mainly steamship) to Ellis Island and World War's, going back wasn't an option. Here all that has to be done is go through the gate's in the opposite direction. This is a very porous border as we all know. It just seem's too elementary to me. Frank

[Big Fish Billy]

You might want to look again in a little bit....efforts are underway all along the border to take away the porous-ness......we should be hearing about something soon.....

[marine4003]

Frank, its largly due to corruption..there is no middle class in mexico, its the haves and have nots. education of our caliber, even public ,is unheard of unless your rich..and to be rich..your corrupt. also as in our country..not everyone is equal, as not all mexicans are decendant of atxecs... its a messed up country.

[longfisher]

As a Texan, I have traveled extensively to Latin America, including Mexico. And, I didn't always travel there as a tourist.

My uncle owned a pretty good sized ranch near Laredo, Texas. And, he often went into Mexico to purchase cattle to bring into the U.S. for the feed-lots and then on to slaughter. He was also a great advocate of Arabian horses and Mexico has some of the finest in the world.

So, when I had a summer off I'd often make a few bucks traveling with him and helping with the mudane stuff like arranging the hotels and meals and making sure the vehicles were safe at night and fueled and ready to go by morning. I learned to judge cattle on the hoof and was at one time even interested in becoming a Veternarian, spent my first year at A&M in that curriculum.

I traveled to Mexico in the late 60s and very early 70's before I went into the service. Then when I was stationed in Pendleton, I still visited. I saw a radical transformation in Mexico between those days and now. And, I think it was NAFTA.

The Mexican economy was always fragile and mostly dependent on agriculture and ranching. I remember how often I would look out the window of our rented hotel or motel rooms see the plot of land immediately next to the hotel being plowed by a mule drawn plow. Much of the produce and meat grown was purchased by the locals. No much seemed to make it out of the country.

With NAFTA American produce and meats flooded Mexico. They were much cheaper than the Mexicans with their rather more primitive systems or cultivation, harvest and transportation could produce. So too were the meats. American producers could make them much more inexpensively. So, it wasn't long before Mexican agriculatural production began to suffer substantially.

A good example is corn. I'd bet the average Mexican and so too the average Mexican American here in the States consume a couple of pounds of corn meal in various products a day. With incredibly inexpensive American corn crossing the border to that corn hungry nation the locals had to give up producing corn. For the first time in their history they also had access to substantial amounts of milled wheat and began, again for the first time, to make totillas from wheat. There was no longer any sense trying to compete with the massive influx of American corn and the displacement of corn in thier diets.

That same scenario was played out with other agriculatural commodities and meats. This has led to a virtually complete collapse of the Mexican agricultural system. And, it has made some American companies and American investors and American commodity speculators who bet against the Mexican agriculture system very, very rich.

With the collapse of Mexican agriculture and to a similar but lesser extent Mexican ranching the people who once worked the land had to find another way to earn a living. In the process they vacated much of rural Mexico and, instead, went elsewhere...to the cities, especially along the border with the U.S. where the Machiladeros (spelling) had their factories. Rural Mexico is in places almost vacant now.

The border industries, also majority owned by American companies but increasingly now by the Chinese, had this incredible labor abundance as a result of the destruction of Mexican agriculture and, whereas wages were once living wages, they're now slave wages.

The border areas also became crime-ridden as people struggled to survive and feed their families. And, new "industries" sprang up around these criminalized Mexican towns. Those included both kidnapping of the Mexican affluent and of foreigners and, of course, the drug trade. Hey, if the U.S. exported so much cheap agriculatural goods that it destroyed the Mexican system of agriculture and deprived the Mexicans of virtually any exports why not grow and produce something that Americans want, and in many cases desperately want, and ship across the border to them in return...cocaine and marijuana, etc.

It's gotten to the point that about a third of the money made in Mexico is from the drug trade and the associated cottage industryies like kidnapping and murder and bribing cops and corrupting public servants. The U.S. killed Mexico with NAFTA so we could make a profit.

So, the average Mexican had three choices. Either he could stay in Mexico and starve or he could become part of the problem in Mexico and join either a criminal gang or a drug gang of he could leave Mexico and find work elsewhere. The worst of the worst took the easy way out and stayed in Mexico and became corrupt. The rest of that story is pretty well known to you so I won't go into how that has gotten intolerably out of hand in Mexico with the government fighting battalion sized drug units with its own battalions of cops and army units, many corrupt.

The less industrious Mexicans just stayed and live in abject poverty both in the cities and in the rural areas. The richest Mexicans are those who were in a position to take advantage of NAFTA and they've done quite well by building and running the border industries. They're not too different from and are regarded by Mexicans as certainly no better than the Banksters here in America who rape our middle class. They protected villians there as they are here.

What I find remarkable is how anyone here in the U.S. doesn't understand how this whole crazy system actually sends Mexicos best people to the U.S., not their worst as most conservatives who don't live in a border state contend. The ones with devotion to family won't see their families starve. The ones with honor and dignity won't allow themselves and their families to be treated without honor and dignity. The ones who have intelligence and ingenuity and tenacity won't stay put and wallow in their own poverty and desperation.

They'll do something, even something illegal, to change that. And, in many cases they come to the U.S. to simply work and send money home to save their families from the absolutely devastating consequeces of NAFTA. It's estimated that at least a third of Mexico's GDP is made up of money coming back to families from the U.S. sent by illegal workers. I have no doubt in that estimate. I believe it has to be true if but an underestimate.

So, you see how the elites in the U.S. and in Mexico colluded to enrich themselves with not a hint of concern about the devestation their greed would cause to the Mexican middle and lower middle classes. NAFTA killed Mexico and it's NAFTA that is caused and is causing the destruction of Mexican society and culture. It's also what's made the drug trade so spectularly successful and what has made Latin drugs kill our children and neighbors. Lastly, it's displace millions of Mexicans who chose the dangers of emmigration, legal or illegal, to simply survive.

As long as there's NAFTA, there will be Mexicans coming to the U.S. for work. They simply have no other choice but death.

Frankly, I admire them. My German ancestors fled a very similar situation post WWI that existed in Kaisar's Germany. I have no idea if they came legally or illegally. But I'm thankful to my bones for their courage. So, I don't begrudge the Mexicans for doing it either.

Besides, the local Mexican laborers I've known (and I know them well) have absolutely never caused any of problems that you who live in other states seem so riled up about. They are not the evil-doers you make them out to be. They are in the truest sense the best of what Mexico has to offer and they are patrons to their families who, regrettably, must depend on their patronage from far away.

I recommend that you guys rethink your ideas of what Mexico is, was and how it changed and why. We had a lot to do with the destruction of Mexico. And, they are a very worthy people certainly equal in honor and integrity and grit to any American I've evern known, including those who took the very hard decision to come to the U.S. for work illegally.

LF

[longfisher]

I admire the character and culture of Mexicans. I have good reason to do so. Unlike many of you, I actually know them and know them well.

LF

[longfisher]

I'm flattered that my posts about Mexico and Mexicans have silenced you into reflection and introspection. It's a good sign and I thank you for your new consideration of the things you once thought about this situation and that it might be more complex than just a bunch of worthless lazy brownies yearning to cut your grass so much that they leave their families, their culture and their language behind for a Toro (lawnmower).

You should have realized that what you were told and what you then undertook to think for yourself was simplistic and, as a result, could not have been anything but pablum dished out by the elites.

LF

[Big Fish Billy]

I'm flattered that my posts about Mexico and Mexicans have silenced you into reflection and introspection. It's a good sign and I thank you for your new consideration of the things you once thought about this situation and that it might be more complex than just a bunch of worthless lazy brownies yearning to cut your grass so much that they leave their families, their culture and their language behind for a Toro (lawnmower).

You should have realized that what you were told and what you then undertook to think for yourself was simplistic and, as a result, could not have been anything but pablum dished out by the elites.

LF

I hope it's that, and not that they're out Christmas shopping for my present........a blow up Sara Palin doll......

[seapower]

A serious question was asked and 3 answer's with different point's of view came back. I was satisfied myself with what was said. I don't re-call any "slang" names even mentioned or any disrespect what so ever. That's until your last post. I wouldn't pat youself on the back too very hard, as usual I found "Marine's" answer to be to the point and simply made. Not too much windbag in him. I'm sure not everyone would agree that you have the only "true" answer, just an answer.

I'm sure that the surface of the question has just been scratched. My only curiosity, was why hard working folk's (as I have seen) like that don't turn their Country around. Are the people we are seeing coming here, the "exception or the rule" of the common Mexican citizen's. If the are the rule, it look's to me that at some point the majority of it's citizen's could make that Land turn around to what they seem to be coming too. Frank